BMW Group Named First International Strategic Partner to Receive the Studio System

Desktop Metal, the company committed to bringing metal 3D printing to engineers and manufacturers, today announced it will begin accepting international pre-orders of its metal 3D printing system, the Studio System™, from companies throughout Europe, Asia Pacific, Canada and Mexico. The announcement comes as Desktop Metal is experiencing tremendous interest and demand from manufacturers and strategic partners around the globe, including BMW Group, which will be the company’s first international early partner to receive a system.

To support its international expansion plans, Desktop Metal has forged strategic partnerships with authorized Desktop Metal international resellers to begin pre-selling its Studio System throughout Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom with availability beginning in mid 2018, and plans to expand more broadly throughout Europe and APAC. The company already has experienced strong demand with system reservations in the United States, with shipments to begin in the coming weeks. To provide superior customer service, the company now has a growing global network of 66 sales partners and resellers. Availability of the Studio System will vary by country and interested buyers should visit www.desktopmetal.com/international for more information.

“Our vision is to make Desktop Metal 3D printing solutions accessible to engineers and manufacturers around the world,” said Ric Fulop, CEO and co-founder of Desktop Metal. “We plan to begin offering our metal 3D printing technology internationally and will be accelerating production to meet worldwide demand, first for our Studio System and later for our Production System. Our partnerships with best-in-class resellers in each of these geographies bring us closer to making metal 3D printing solutions available to all who want to realize the benefits of rapid prototyping and mass production of metal parts.”

In anticipation of the international expansion, Desktop Metal also announced it will be working with a select group of strategic customers as early stage evaluators of its technologies, starting with BMW Group. These strategic partners will be a source of critical user feedback on benchmark parts, materials, training and system usage.

Fostering the startup ecosystem in order to take the automotive world to the next level is the mission of BMW Group’s independent venture unit: “As an early investor in Desktop Metal, we saw potential in its 3D printing technology and vision for redefining manufacturing,” said Uwe Higgen managing partner of BMW i Ventures.

BMW Group’s additive manufacturing team works closely together with Desktop Metal to accelerate market adoption. “Metal additive manufacturing has already impacted the automotive industry mainly in prototyping. Currently, we are further expanding the use of metal additive manufacturing in multiple applications. Starting with design to cost-effective mass production, which is the most challenging application where material and process qualification, design, performance and cost-per-part are crucial for our success. Together with Desktop Metal, we are working on challenging the status quo of metal additive manufacturing. We are looking into uncovering the potential for both the Studio System for functional prototypes and the Production System for high-speed prototyping and mass production of BMW Group automotive parts”, said Jens Ertel head of BMW Group’s Additive Manufacturing Center in Munich.

“It’s an honor BMW Group chose to both invest and now partner with Desktop Metal as an early pioneer of our metal 3D printing technologies,” said Fulop. “We look forward to learning and benefiting from BMW Group’s legendary engineering, manufacturing and production expertise.”

About the Studio SystemThe Studio System, which debuted in May 2017, is the first office-friendly metal 3D printing system for rapid prototyping and is 10 times less expensive than existing technology today. The Studio System is a complete platform, including a printer, a debinder, and a sintering furnace that, together, deliver complex and even impossible geometries of metal 3D printed parts right in an engineer’s office or on the shop floor. To manufacture metal 3D printed parts at scale, Desktop Metal also debuted the only 3D printing system for mass production of high resolution metal parts today, the Production System.

About Desktop Metal

Desktop Metal, Inc., based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is accelerating the transformation of manufacturing with end-to-end metal 3D printing solutions. Founded in 2015 by leaders in advanced manufacturing, metallurgy, and robotics, the company is addressing the unmet challenges of speed, cost, and quality to make metal 3D printing an essential tool for engineers and manufacturers around the world. Since its inception, the company has raised $438 million in financing with a portfolio of strategic partners and investors including Ford Motor Company, GV (formerly Google Ventures), GE Ventures, BMW iVentures, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Lowe’s, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and more. Desktop Metal was selected as one of the world’s 30 most promising Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum and named to MIT Technology Review’s list of 50 Smartest Companies. For more information, visit www.desktopmetal.com.